Gaza: Miracle Protection of Israeli Soldiers

B"H

Miracle in Gaza

Chief Rabbi Confirms Gaza Miracle Story
by Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) Former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, recovering from a
life-threatening disease, prayed several times at Rachel's Tomb before
the recent war in Gaza. Informed that an "old woman" saved IDF
soldiers' lives in Gaza, he said, "Did she mention that I sent her?"
The story was first told by Rabbi Lazer Brody, a rabbi in Ashdod who
"devotes his time to spreading faith around the globe via Breslov
Israel and the Emuna Outreach organization" that he founded. Rabbi
Brody told IsraelNationalNews that he receives many phone calls in the
framework of his work – including a particularly noteworthy one about
two weeks ago. "The caller, an Israeli man, was clearly knowledgeable
about how IDF infantry troops operate," the rabbi and former IDF
special-unit veteran said, "and this is what he told me:"
'My son is in the Givati Brigade, and his unit's job is to clean out
areas around Gaza City. Outside one house, a woman dressed in black
appeared and started yelling at them in Arabic, 'Ruchu min hon – Get
out of here! It's dangerous!' The troops thought she might be trying
to protect her family, but they didn't want to take chances; the
company commander called the regiment commander, and they went on to
their next target. There, too, the same woman appeared and gave the
same warning. The soldiers thought she probably came somehow through
the tunnel network that Hamas had set up between houses, and one of
the soldiers even yelled at her… Then they went to a third house – and
the same woman appeared again. This time, all the soldiers froze.
'The soldiers then hooked up with a Golani Engineering force whose job
it was to blow up houses that were found to be booby-trapped. My son's
unit asked them to check these three houses – and they found that all
three of the houses that the woman had warned them away from had been
booby-trapped."
The story did not receive high-level confirmation, though it made the
ranks of the rumor mills - and many dismissed it as just that. Then,
on Monday night of this week, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the Chief Rabbi of
Tzfat and son of former Chief Rabbi of Israel Mordechai Eliyahu, was
teaching students in Machon Meir in Jerusalem about the sublime level
of soldiers fighting on behalf of Israel. In this connection, he said:
"There are soldiers who have been telling that in some places where
they went in, there was a woman who told them not to enter certain
buildings because they were booby-trapped, and that she said her name
was Rachel... I asked a certain Yeshiva dean about this story, and he
told me that it wasn't a 'story,' but that he actually knew one of the
soldiers involved, and he told me his name.

"Then the Yeshiva dean asked me if it was in any way connected with
the fact that my father, Rabbi Eliyahu, had left the hospital before
the war and went to pray not once, not twice, but three times at
Rachel's Tomb, and went nowhere else to pray? I told him I didn't
know, but that I would ask.
"In truth, I was a little bit afraid to ask him, because he usually
dismisses these kinds of stories… But I decided to go, and I asked
him, 'Do you remember that you told us one time about Rabbi Shalom
Mutzafi, of blessed memory, during World War II, when the Germans
seemed about to enter the Holy Land, and he prayed at Kever Rachel
against the decree, and he said that he actually saw Rachel praying.
[My father] said yes, he remembers. "So I told him about this story
that I had heard, and I asked him, 'Should we believe it? Is it
truth?' And he said, 'Yes, it's true.' I asked him to explain, and he
said - in these words: 'I told her: Rachel, a war is on! Don't
withhold your voice from crying [based on Jeremiah 31,14-16]! Go
before G-d, and pray for the soldiers, who are sacrificing themselves
for the Nation of Israel, that they should strike - and not be
stricken.'
"I told him, "Well, you should know that she really did that." So he
asked, "Did she mention that I sent her?"
"Everyone should then make his own calculation," Rabbi Eliyahu the son
then continued. "If this is the great level of the soldiers, and if
this is the great power of prayer, then how can anyone say anything
against them?..."